Word for Word/Deconstructing 'The Simpsons'; The Aristotelian Logic of Bart And Homer. Or Is It Platonic?

By JAYSON BLAIR

Published: September 9, 2001

WHEN Fox Television and Matt Groening first introduced America to Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Santa's Little Helper on Dec. 17, 1989, few would have imagined the impact this lovably dysfunctional family from Springfield would have on popular culture.

''The Simpsons,'' with its clever writing and satirical attacks, has not only changed the way Americans view cartoons, but also the way they speak: the Oxford English Dictionary this year even added Homer's catch phrase ''D'oh'' (''expressing frustration at the realization that things have turned out badly or not as planned, or that one has just said or done something foolish'').

So it's no surprise that academia has turned its gaze to the phenomenon. A new collection of essays called ''The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer'' (Open Court), edited by William Irwin, Mark T. Conard and Aeon J. Skoble, dissects the show's many cultural and political messages -- both liminal and subliminal. It's all quite serious. Judge for yourself from the following excerpts. JAYSON BLAIR

Let's start with a look at the family patriarch, the subject of ''Homer and Aristotle,'' by Raja Halwani, assistant professor of philosophy at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago:

Homer is not an evil person. While he is not a paradigm of virtue, he certainly is not malicious. The harshest reaction we can have towards him is pity. There are at least two reasons for this. The first reason is that Homer's upbringing leaves much to be desired. To begin with, he grew up mostly in Springfield, a town whose inhabitants -- with the rare exception of Lisa -- have serious and severe character flaws, ranging from stupidity to malice, to being simply incompetent and clueless in the ways of the world (even Marge, who is a good candidate for being another exception to the inhabitants of Springfield, is very conventional and often lacks critical abilities). . . .

The second reason why our judgment of Homer's character is not harsh, even though he is not virtuous, is that he is not generally a malicious person. He is selfish, he is a glutton, he is greedy and he can be quite dumb, but he is rarely one of those people who are envious of others and who wish them ill will. It is true that he often acts with deliberate intent to harm some people, but we think that these people somehow are not worthy of better treatment.

Marge typically follows the Aristotelian recipe for a happy, moral life, and with great success. The good to which she looks in making her decisions (moral or otherwise) is the good of her family, and therefore herself. She makes these decisions not because she hopes that they will be reciprocated, but because they are reciprocated by their very nature; what is good for them is good for her. In Marge, we see that Aristotle's moral virtues can be successfully applied not just in the abstract, ivory towers of academia, but in the real, workaday cartoon world.

In ''Lisa and American Anti-Intellectualism,'' Aeon J. Skoble, visiting assistant professor of philosophy at the United States Military Academy at West Point, unravels the mixed messages of the Simpson's precocious older daughter:

American anti-intellectualism . . . is pervasive but not all encompassing. As it does with many other aspects of modern society, ''The Simpsons'' often uses this theme as fodder for its satire. In the Simpson family, only Lisa could really be described as an intellectual. But her portrayal as such is not unequivocally flattering. In contrast to her relentlessly ignorant father, she is often shown having the right answer to a problem or a more perceptive analysis of a situation. . . . Although her wisdom is sometimes presented as valuable, other times it is presented as a case of being sanctimonious or condescending. . . .

In Lisa's challenge to Springfield, the show calls attention to the cultural limitations of small-town America, but it also reminds us that intellectual disdain for the common man can be carried too far and that theory can all to easily lose touch with common sense.

Even the family's infant daughter comes up for scrutiny, in ''Why Maggie Matters: Sounds of Silence, East and West,'' by Eric Bronson of Berkeley College in New York City:

Maggie Simpson shot Mr. Burns. The infant, still too young to walk, protected her lollipop from falling into groping miserly hands. Was it self-defense? An accident perhaps? After all, the gun did belong to Mr. Burns and only ended up in Maggie's hands due to his own carelessness. Still, the two-part episode ends on an interrogative note. Just what were the intentions of this young and seemingly innocent girl? Could she knowingly commit such a crime? The answers, or lack thereof, are less than comforting. The camera zooms in on Maggie's mouth, her pacifier blocking any articulation or explanation as the credits begin to roll. The child tries to speak but cannot.